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Even though my primary training as an artist is in graphic design and illustration, I have always loved to paint. In art school I was torn between Graphics and Fine Art. I was first taught composition and design, painting with gouache, which is, believe it or not, a type of watercolor that is opaque because it is lactose based - yes milk! I hated the medium because it was chalky and "blobby", dried streaky many times, and even chipped off the paper if you weren't careful. I did, however, learn composition and design, which I suppose was the overall point all along.
My second year I was taught to paint with oils - which I immediately fell in love with. Luminous glazes, wonderful mixing qualities, transparent color layers that you could really make glow - I spent most of my time out of "class" painting - anything and everything, just so I could push the paint around and wallow in the colors I could make! For some reason, I never was a big fan of watercolors or acrylics. I did - and still do - have a passion for Dr. Martin Dyes. That was the media used primarily in my illustration classes. Back in the day, they were not considered permanent enough for work that was not going to be reproduced for production, but I adored the staggeringly brilliant colors and the way the crisp white of the illustration board bounced the colors all around.
Looking back, I can see how I got to where I am today. The tropical Florida sunlight with its intensity always highlighted and purified the colors around me. Playing in a palette of intense, saturated dyes with my graphics training, I developed a love of color that seems to practically catch the rainbow.
Which leads me to today, using the French Tinfix Sennilier Dyes and pure white silk. Thirty plus years later - almost full circle. Silk is an amazing surface to work with. It has an iridescent quality and sheen to it that makes it almost alive - like skin in the sunshine. Hold your bare arm up in the sunlight and rotate it slowly, looking at all the colors that play on the surface, and you'll see what I mean. So, it's the perfect "canvas" to me, for the rich colors that I love to use in my paintings. It adds a quality all its own to the final piece that can not be reproduced with any other surface.
